The Guardian: ‘Children Do Not Belong To Their Parents’

The impending death of baby Charlie Gard proves that Sarah Palin was correct when she warned about the “death panels” that would preside over government-run health care, determining who gets to live and who gets “allowed to die.”

The Left, ever tone-deaf, has decided to advocate for the death of a child.

The left-wing newspaper The Guardian published an op-ed Monday stating that children do not belong to their parents.

“I’m sure that those who have involved themselves in the case of Charlie Gard would applaud what happened in Auckland. But if they do, they would also have to acknowledge a number of things that have been part of our approach to the care of children since the 19th century. The first is the most fundamental: as a society, we must choose how to decide such heartbreaking cases. Of course each child is different, but do we accept that there should be principles and rules, whatever the circumstances, that guide us as we try to work out what’s best? We can, of course, reject such a view and choose to go with the heart and emotions. But if we do, whose heart should prevail when there are conflicting views? Where there is conflict, how do you resolve it? Alternatively, we can reason our way through, cold as this may appear. We can accept the idea of principles and rules. And, if reason is to prevail, you need to analyse how to proceed.

These are the steps. The first is to recognise that children do not belong to their parents. Second, when a claim is made that parents have rights over their children, it is important to step back and examine the language used. We need to remind ourselves that parents do not have rights regarding their children, they only have duties, the principal duty being to act in their children’s best interests. This has been part of the fabric of our law and our society for a long time. Third, if we are concerned with the language of rights, it is, of course, children who have rights; any rights that parents have exist only to protect their children’s rights.

Now, in giving effect to a child’s rights, the parents’ views as to their children’s interests should usually be respected. But parents cannot always be the ultimate arbiters of their children’s interests. If parents, for example, insist on subjecting their child to a particular diet that, in the view of others with acknowledged expertise in the subject, will cause the child harm, we do not stand by. We intervene to safeguard the child.”

Below this abominable op-ed, the Guardian includes an appeal for donations with the line
we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.”

Sarah Palin has been leading prayers for the government’s young victim.

Fights with the European Council of Human Rights prevented the child from receiving the experimental care he needed in the United States for his treatable Mitchondrial disease, and even the Vatican — responding to the crisis of a Catholic child seen wearing a St. Jude medallion for “lost causes” — initially threw the boy under the bus.

Clearly, the European Union’s socialized medicine programs come hand in hand with the government’s ability to decide whether its citizens live or die.

Gard’s father Chris released a statement Monday making clear that American and Italian doctors could have saved his son, but battles with government doomed the boy to death: “This is one of the hardest things that we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that we’ll ever have to do, which is to let our beautiful little Charlie go. The American and Italian team were still willing to treat Charlie after seeing his recent MRI and EEG perform last week, but there is one simple reason why treatment cannot now go ahead and that is time. A whole lot of time has been wasted. We are now in July and our poor boy has been left to just lie in hospital for months without any treatment whilst lengthy court battles have been fought.”

“Tragically having had Charlie’s medical notes reviewed by independent experts, we now know had Charlie been given the treatment sooner, he would have had the potential to be a normal healthy little boy. Despite his condition in January, Charlie’s muscles were in pretty good shape and far from showing irreversible catastrophic structural brain damage. Dr Hirano and other experts say his brain scans and EEGs were those of a relatively normal child of his age. We knew that ourselves because as his parents, we knew our son, which is why we continued fighting,” Gard stated.

Gard continued:”Charlie’s been left for his illness to deteriorate devastatingly to the point of no return. This has also never been about ‘parents know best’. All we wanted to do was take Charlie from one world-renowned hospital to another world-renowned hospital in the attempt to save his life and to be treated by the world leader in mitochondrial disease. We’ll have to live with the what-ifs which will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Despite the way that our beautiful son has been spoken about sometimes, as if he is not worthy of a chance at life, our son is an absolute warrior and we could not be prouder of him and we will miss him terribly. His body, heart and soul may soon be gone, but his spirit will live on for eternity and he will make a difference to people’s lives for years to come. We will make sure of that.We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie who unfortunately won’t make his first birthday in just under two weeks’ time.”

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The Vatican has come out against the parents of terminally ill British ten-month-old Charlie Gard. Gard, who suffers from a mitochondrial disease, is dying in Great Britain’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation […]